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This species is known only with certainty from Volcán San Martín in the Sierra de Los Tuxtlas, southern Veracruz, Mexico, at 500-1,200m asl. It may be present on the adjacent Santa Marta, however this requires confirmation.

It is a terrestrial species that inhabits lowland and intermediate tropical forest, being found under rotten logs and among leaf-litter, and especially under fallen bromeliads. It presumably reproduces by direct development.

This species appears to have undergone a population collapse. It was never common, and wasn't found from the 1980s until 2012 when Eduardo Pineda and his group from Inecol found 3 specimens at Ejido Ruiz Cortines Volcan San Martin, Los Tuxtlas.

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Serious habitat loss is taking place in the range of this species due to subsistence agriculture, logging, and human settlement. However, this might not be sufficient to explain its apparent disappearance.

• 8.1.2 Named species
• 1.1 Housing & urban areas
• 2.1.2 Small-holder farming
• 5.3.5 Motivation Unknown/Unrecorded

It occurs in Parque Nacional San Martín and may be present in the Parque Nacional Santa Marta. While continued protection and maintenance of the species' remaining habitat is obviously required, research is also needed into the reasons for its dramatic decline.

• 1.2 Resource & habitat protection

Listed as Critically Endangered because its Extent of Occurrence is less than 100 km2, its distribution is severely fragmented, and there is continuing decline in the extent and quality of its habitat, and in the number of mature individuals, in southern Veracruz, Mexico. Further information may show this species to be Extinct.

• Hanken, J. 1983. Genetic variation in a dwarfed lineage, the Mexican salamander genus Thorius (Amphibia: Plethodontidae): Taxonomic, ecologic, and evolutionary implications. Copeia 1983: 1051-1073.
• Hanken, J. and Wake, D.B. 1998. Biology of tiny animals: systematics of the minute salamanders (Thorius: Plethodontidae) from Veracruz and Puebla, Mexico, with descriptions of five new species. Copeia: 312-345.
• Shannon, F.A. and Werler, J.E. 1955. Notes on amphibians of the Los Tuxtlas Range of Veracruz, Mexico. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science: 360-386.